Highguard Releasing Big New Update That Will Add a New…

Wildlight Entertainment reveals Episode 2 for its online shooter Highguard, adding a new playable Warden, map, Ranked mode, and plenty more content into the game. After its seemingly underwhelming reveal at The 2025 Game Awards, developer Wildlight Entertainment essentially went dark over the next month, leaving most fans puzzled at what Highguard would actually play like ahead of its January 26 launch. Considering the studio is largely made up of former Respawn Entertainment developers, the plan seems to have centered around a shadow drop reveal, similar to what they pulled off originally with Apex Legends.

Leading off with a special Highguard gameplay showcase, the online raid shooter launched immediately after, letting players get their first taste of the game's 3v3 action. While player numbers rocketed out of the gate, likely due to people's curiosity, the game's population and viewership on sites like Twitch cratered less than a week later. However, Wildlight Entertainment isn't giving in as the studio continues to respond to player feedback with updates and patches, while also continuing to add to the game by giving players new content to try out.

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By Cameron Swan

At the start of February, Wildlight Entertainment added a unique 5v5 version of its Raid Mode, something which has seemingly resonated with players. However, it's clear that the launch was only just the start for Highguard as Wildlight's ambitious post-launch plans have finally arrived. Episode 2 arrives on February 6, 2026 and brings with it a pile of new content including the first post-launch Warden, a new map, Ranked mode, and much more.

Highguard Adds Monster Slayer Warden

As revealed in Highguard's 2026 content roadmap, Episode 2 adds a new warden called Ekon. According to Wildlight, Ekon is a legendary monster-slayer that can shapeshift into a dire wolf to track and hunt his enemies. Instead of using a mount, Ekon shapeshifts into his wolf form, increasing his speed, while letting the player attack or use the third person camera to better see around corners. His passive ability is called Dread and highlights wounded enemies in pulsating beats until they're either healed or dead. Wolf Spirit is his tactical which has Ekon unleashing a spirit wolf to hunt the closest enemy and apply Dread to them. If seen in time, the enemy team can shoot it down. Finally, his ultimate is called Fearsome Howl, which applies dread to all enemies while increasing movement speed.

In addition to Ekon, Highguard is adding the Skydrift map to the 3v3 and 5v5 rotation. According to the patch notes, this map is west of Headwall and features hollowed out caverns, an ancient ring of stone, and massive chain bridges. There's also a palace above the clouds that players can reach by using Sky Jumpers around the map.

Not only that, 2 additional mounts are also joining, including the Dire Wolf and its Shadow Wolf variant. Players can earn the Shadow Wolf by taking part in 10 matches of Ranked, win or lose.

Ranked Mode Arrives in Episode 2

The other major addition to Episode 2 is the highly anticipated Ranked Mode. Utilizing the 3v3 Raid Mode, players can gain Ranked Points (RP) to climb 7 ranks with 3 divisions in each. Bronze 3 is the starting point for all players, with rewards like Banner Frames being awarded based on how high players were able to climb through the ranks in an Episode. Modifiers, such as a bonus for playing solo, Loss protection and an Early leaver penalty are active to ensure fairness as well.

Episode 2 Changes

Episode 2 is also joined by a lengthy set of patch notes, fixing a variety of issues and bugs within the game. However, this update is also making a bunch of changes to the core gameplay loop, many of which were identified thanks to player feedback. One of the bigger criticisms with the current Raid Mode is the Gear Up phase, where teams rush out to find gear. In response, Wildlight is improving the loot that can be found at points of interest on the map. Red Weapon chests will now have Masterwork level weapons have improved stats beyond their normal rarity. Ultimate chargers can be found easier at POIs, Waypoint markers have also been added, and Speed gates are now always on when a player is near them.

A Stats menu has been added, allowing players to check out their tracked data retroactive from Episode 1. For Episode 2, the team has added more columns of data including Raid Attack and Defense success. Orange Weapon Mods have also been added into the game, giving Highguard's meta weapons an even deadlier edge to them.

Highguard Episode 2 Patch Notes

QUALITY OF LIFE & NEW FEATURES

As we continue to improve the game through feedback, bug fixing and small features, we will document them here. When necessary, we’ll use “dev notes” to give context on why we made a specific change.

Stats 1.0

Players want stats! For Episode 2 we have added a Stats menu to Headwall.

The stats tracked here are mostly retroactive from Episode 1.

Raid Attack and Defense success stats are new for Episode 2, as we are just now starting to track these stats.

We will continue to expand this feature in future episodes.

New Orange Weapon Mods:

We will continue to mix up orange weapon mods. For Episode 2, we are adding variety and not removing anything.

Saber Rifle - Impact Rounds
Increased critical damage (headshots) with a slower rate of fire. Fires a two shot burst instead of three. Faster projectile speed.
Vanguard - Drum Magazine
Much larger magazine, with a slower reload.
Corsair - Doubleshot
Fire a 12 round burst on each trigger pull

Technical Updates

From the last patch, performance optimizations were applied to player replication, movement netcode, and siege tower rendering.
Users can now enable NVIDIA Reflex on supported systems.
Several optimizations were added to reduce bandwidth utilization.

Gameplay Updates:

The Defensive Phase at the start of the game has been reduced to 30 seconds from 60.
Anchor Stones fuse timers have been increased to 80 seconds from 60.
Dev note: The goal here is to make Anchor Stones a bit harder to win on
We’ve added your Kills and Assists to the HUD above the minimap.
Many zipline usability improvements, including smoother attaching and riding, and making it harder to accidentally attach
Players can now have a maximum of 4 ziplines. When casting the 5th, their first one will automatically destroy
Improvements to mantle feel
You will be prompted to drop the BigRig when it gets to low or zero ammo
Upon being revived, you now get a hint to tap the emote button to say "Thank You". As a byproduct your character will no longer automatically say thank you.
Pinged orange weapons will now show the perk when you hover on them
You can now ping ziplines
You can now ping Mara darkspawn when it’s highlighted through walls (at the end of a raid)
You can now ping Kai’s ice wall
Pinging a Shieldbreaker or Domesplitter plant point now has more specific ping VO based on the scenario.
The end game podium will now highlight people who had the highest stats on their team
Smugglers Den minimap has been updated to be more accurate
Adjusted the final Shieldbreaker plant animation to take exactly as long as a normal one
The Trader menu will darken and update if his stock changes while you have the menu open
Dev note: This is to reduce accidentally purchasing something right as the stock is upgrading.
Dead players no longer show up on the minimap
Dev note: This seemed confusing and redundant with being able to see a player's orb through walls.
Adjusted Mara’s Soul Armor power description to include that it also works on enemy players (so be careful where you throw it)
Added key bindings on PC for Map Screen, Character Info and Loadout
AFK timer in a match has been reduced from 5 minutes to 4
Firing Range targets have been replaced with new versions that stay open so you can test sustained fire
Firing Range can now accommodate parties of up to 5 players

Lobby/Menu Updates:

Added an option to leave the party by clicking on party member’s social card
You now get a message confirming that you sent a Friend Request
Slider bars in the settings menu can now be adjusted by typing in numbers
Changing your controller profile will now highlight what buttons are changing
You can now unblock players in your Social tab

Weapon Updates:

Vanguard

Slightly slowing rate of fire and raising damage. TTK is nearly equivalent. This just reduces the number of bullets required to kill
Increased headshot multiplier

Longhorn

Repeater - Less vertical kick, faster raise time, faster sprint raise time, less spread (hipfire), slower spread bloom (hipfire)

Viper - Impact Rounds

Smaller mag size
More kick

Item Updates:

Amulet: Bomb Kit
Bomb plant time nerfed (2.5s -> 3s). Defuse time is still 2.5s.
Amulet: Harvester no longer drops bonus Ultimate Chargers from White Supply Barrels.
Slightly lowered the top speed of orange Saddles.

Character Updates:

Slade

Fixed a bug where the impact damage from his Ultimate was not dealing damage on uneven terrain.
Adding friend/foe identification to Slade’s VFXs. Enemy fire will now take on a darker red appearance.

Redmane

Redmane can now break floors he’s standing on with his tactical
Redmane’s tactical now hits players more reliably.
Leaping into solid geo with Redmane will drop him to the ground faster, instead of bouncing off and floating down.

Mara

Mara will now dismount automatically when casting Immortal Coil while mounted, instead of getting an error message.

Una

Improved Una minion target acquisition speed (they should shoot at players faster)
Fixed Una minions having larger hitboxes than intended.

Atticus

Adjusted Atticus’s Ultimate audio to not be occluded by geo. This means you can hear him better in his active Ultimate state even if he’s in another room.

Quest:

The Quest is designed to be a set of difficult challenges to complete over the course of an Episode for some free rewards and bragging rights. Because Episode 1 was only 2 weeks long, we decided to keep the Episode 1 Quest active through Episode 2. We’ll be back in Episode 3 with more challenges and more rewards.

Bug Fixes:

Fixed a bug where characters with movement speed bonuses could double-dip on slide boosts
Fixed instances where you would sometimes get bumped off the zipline when respawning
Fixed some issues where the Play button would be unresponsive
Fixed an issue where loot in chests would show highlights for different rarities
Fixed a bug where the Care Package was dropping too low of level loot in the 3rd gear up phase and beyond.
Fixed an issue where Emote anti-peek wasn’t hiding enemy mounts
Fixed an issue where you could respawn with your initial loadout when dying to environmental hazards like lava
Fixed collision issues on Dustline
Fixed multiple ways to break Training by leaping and climbing over walls
Fixed some incorrect key bindings in the UI
Improved the reliability of voice chat icons
Fixed an issue where the Shieldbreaker would sometimes drop in inaccessible places if you tried to enter your own base
Removed the ability to drop the Shieldbreaker on top of the enemy dome (how cheeky)
Fixed rare cases where “Position Revealed” would stay on your screen long after a raid was over
Fixed an issue where pressing Esc to leave the Social menu would cancel matchmaking
Fixed an issue where Slade’s arms would not reset after losing his Hot Streak
Fixed ability to repair large gates in bases
Fixed Condor running in place when she uses her Ultimate Power while running
Reduced the amount of screen the Longhorn Repeater covers while jumping and firing
Fixed some invisible collision blocking bullets above banners on Wellspring base
Fixed some cases of your player having a third arm
Multi-Lock Rocket Launcher will no longer target trees
Fixed mounts not playing proper water audio and fx when running through it
Fixed ability for players to ping when riding a zipline
Removed the ability to place Mara’s Immortal Coil on open doors
Fixed the zipline gun colliding with air in some areas of Summit
Fixed Blast Hammers from doing splash damage behind you when used
Players are no longer detected by Condor’s tactical when standing still on their mount
Fixed Una summoning a Tree Walker in mid air by riding a zipline
Fixed some locations in Wellspring base where you would get kicked off your mount
Fixed an issue where you would hit yourself with a rocket if fired while running full speed on a mount
Improved game performance when mounting or dismounting
Improved some translations for different languages, both in text and VO
Added localized translations for different languages in the Advanced Training video
Fixed the Crossplay setting not saving when changed to off on consoles
Fixed rare cases where your controls would be unresponsive after using a mount emote
Fixed a bug that would cause ambient audio to drop out
Fixed a bug where mouse and controller sensitivity settings weren't being applied correctly while transitioning between hipfire and ADS
Resolved a bug where DLSS presets did not immediately appear or disappear in the Settings menu after modifying the antialiasing mode.